AIBU to think the BBC should not air sympathetic neighbour clips?

[ForsterMcLennan]

A man is on the run after probably murdering his family - and the BBC makes the editorial decision to play a clip of a man who looked after their swimming pool. He was a “softly spoken man” apparently, a nice guy looking forward to his daughter’s sports day. I am furious. If this is the only background they have, ditch it. A monster made into a cuddly, kind dad. I can’t believe you would run this.

You realise most of these people are completely normal family men, right? Both things can be true.

He hasn't yet been convicted of anything, in addition.

I think the point is no one expected him to do it

I agree OP. This happens so often. Family, friends and neighbours are interviewed and trot out the same lines.

Family annhilators are not lovely, normal family men.

They are generally violent and/or controlling men who turn to murder when they feel that they are losing control.

YANBU. I hate when things like this are reported relating to these types of crimes. It’s unnecessary, not usually realistic of who they’re discussing and it reduces the victims of these horrific crimes to nothing imo. It’s the same feeling when the daily mail insist on including the house value of people involved in their articles.

Journalism at its worst. They hound these people until they can get a sound bite.

Yes. Clodagh Hawes ‘pillar of the community’ husband murdered her and their children before killing himself and her family was so blindsided by shock and the ‘good man who cracked and deserves to be considered a victim too’ narrative that they went along with a joint funeral and a eulogy which praised the murderer as a devoted family man and saw them all buried together in the same family plot, the murderer alongside his victims. (He was later exhumed.) It started a big #her name was Clodagh campaign.

The point is important I think - you never know what goes on behind closed doors. So many people think you can tell.

I will always remember Clodagh Hawes. She and her children were murdered around the same time my children and I escaped their dad and moved into refuge. I felt so sorry for her family too, being basically bullied into allowing a joint funeral and burial. They would have been so fragile and in shock at the time. Because of course, the possessive, narcissistic monster who brutally murdered his wife and 3 children was also a victim. I’m glad his body was moved elsewhere. He deserves to be forgotten about.

Sure, but given that this man fled the country after murdering his family, surely family and friends of the dead don’t need to see endless footage of people saying ‘Lovely chap’?

I agree - they should be giving more airtime to descriptions of how nice the victims were, not the suspect.

YANBU, OP. But I've long given up expecting better from the BBC. They did exactly the same thing with the murdering scum father of poor Sara Sharif.

I still think about it regularly, it was so horrifying. The text of the parish priest’s eulogy, describing AH as a family man standing proudly in his kitchen, looking at his family, which was broadcast over loudspeakers so people who couldn’t fit in the church would hear it, and making no mention of the murders, is one of the most chilling things I’ve ever heard. It was as if they’d all died in a car crash that was no one’s fault.

And the detail that he’d been planning it for a year, had rearranged the furniture so Clodagh wouldn’t see him coming with an axe, and that the last thing he did after slitting his three children’s throats and before he hanged himself was to transfer money out of their joint account so his side of the family would benefit. And let’s not e en think about the fact that he watched child abuse images and was a school principal.

This, completely my point. A family destroyed, but let’s talk about how nice the dad was?!

Misogyny alive and well. And I don’t buy the “anyone can crack” line. The swimming pool guy was talking about him with a tone of fondness. Horrific.

He probably DID come across as softly spoken, lovely chap. Thats why its so utterly unbelievable. No signs that he was anything but a normal guy

But it’s irrelevant. He was the opposite of that. Let’s mourn the family. Not eulogise the murderer. And if you heard the way he was being described, that was not the tone at all.

You don’t believe both things can be simultaneously true? Really?

Whose eulogising him? Just stating how people who knew him never thought he was capable of such a terrible act.

Come on. No need to be devils advocate for the sake of it, given the circumstances.

Exactly. A bit like “I’ve lived here all my life, you’d never expect it.”

This is horrendous. I am relieved I don’t know about certain things. And I am so glad you and your children escaped violence.

I don’t think it is necessarily misogyny. If you don’t buy anyone can crack then it means that the red flags were all there and the victims where what, ignoring them?

I think it is important that we understand that the soft spoken family man isn’t necessarily safe - knowing the monsters are sometimes hidden is what will keep people alert and safe.

I don’t buy that anyone can crack and murder someone, least of all people they “love”. I mean, I know some people really do, but I think that’s a lot more unusual but nonetheless tragic. I believe that people who do this specific thing in this specific scenario (usually but not always men it seems) do it because they are of the view that they own their family. The murderer of Clodagh Hawe and her children for example, seems to have been a particularly evil narcissist who genuinely believed that his family were nothing without him, that they should no longer exist without him because what is the point of them being alive without him?

It's not devils advocate. It's the truth.

Monsters don't tend to look or act like monsters, until they do.

It's part of the shock factor which lends itself to publicity. How many friends and family would really say "yeah he's a complete bastard, I wouldn't have put it past him".

Are you a psychologist?

This seems to happen a lot.

I think it partly not speaking ill of the dead and partly people not wanting to air dirty laundry or he was fine with then or his mates down the pub- because I can think of a fair few cases where it later came out everyone knew the man was an abusive bully or had concerns.

The language often used in media also concering as it often obscures what happens or even blames the actual victims - it a known phenomenon.